A 2.16GW data centre campus is proposed for the Western Downs in Queensland, Australia, and its anchor tenant is signed before the application is decided
A data centre campus proposed for the Western Downs in Queensland, Australia, would be among the largest industrial electrical loads ever put to an Australian council. The anchor tenant is already signed. The application is not yet decided, the lease carries a foreign-investment condition, and the published capacity figure depends on which document inside the application you read. All three of those are worth separating, because each points at a different kind of risk for anyone planning to work on the site.
Key facts
- Singapore-based Zerra DC lodged a development application in August 2026 for the Western Downs Digital Park, a 725.5-hectare site about 37km north-west of Dalby in Queensland. It has not been decided.
- The application seeks four 360MW data centre buildings, which is 1.44GW of IT capacity. An infrastructure report inside the same application describes an electrical design for six such buildings, or 2.16GW. Both figures are in circulation because both are in the application.
- Anthropic has signed a lease for capacity on the campus, subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval, and has said it would cover the full cost of connecting to the grid including any network upgrades.
- The Braemar transmission substation sits roughly 600 metres south of the site and operates at 275kV and 330kV. Siting the load next to an existing junction is what makes the timeline plausible, and it is the detail a supplier should read first.
What was actually lodged, and with whom
The applicant is WDDP Pty Ltd, the project company for Singapore-based developer Zerra DC. The site is 1933 Dalby-Kogan Road, 725.5 hectares, approximately 37km north-west of Dalby and around 250km west of Brisbane. Western Downs Regional Council is the assessment manager.
The application seeks a material change of use for a research and technology industry, for workforce accommodation, and for a high-impact industry concrete batching plant, together with associated works. It proposes approximately 195,000 square metres of data centre floorspace across four stages, alongside power infrastructure, internal roads, parking and a temporary workforce accommodation village.
Construction is expected to take four to six years. The application was lodged in August 2026 and remains before the council's planning team, which is the single most important fact in the story: nothing described here has been approved.
Why the capacity figure has two values
The application proposes four 360MW data centre buildings, which is 1.44GW of IT capacity. Separately, an infrastructure services report included in the same application refers to an electrical design accommodating six 360MW buildings, equivalent to 2.16GW of IT load. Both numbers are accurate to their own basis, and that is why coverage of the same project has carried both.
The distinction matters more here than it usually would. A 1.44GW built form with a 2.16GW electrical design is a site engineered with 50 percent headroom above what is being sought, which tells a reader something about staging intent that neither figure conveys alone. A capacity figure without its basis is not a fact about a building, and on a load this size the gap between the two bases is larger than most Australian data centres in total.
The investment figures split the same way. The application states AUD 14.5bn excluding GST, or approximately AUD 16bn including GST. The $32bn figure widely reported alongside the lease announcement is a full-build-out number. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.
The grid position is the reason this site was chosen
The Braemar transmission substation sits about 600 metres south of the site and operates at 275kV and 330kV. 275kV transmission lines cross the western portion of the land and a 330kV line runs about 600 metres south. Several gas-fired power stations are nearby. The proposal contemplates connecting directly to that substation rather than to the local distribution network.
Reporting on the proposal puts the potential draw at about 47GWh a day against Queensland average daily consumption of around 170GWh. That comparison is what has driven most of the public debate, and it is a fair thing to debate. It is not, however, the operative fact for a contractor: the operative fact is that the connection point already exists and the tenant has said it would fund the connection and any network upgrades itself, and that no new transmission infrastructure is described as necessary.
A load of this size arriving at an existing high-voltage junction, privately funded, is a different procurement shape from one that waits on a network augmentation. It moves the critical path onto site works, switchgear, transformers and commissioning rather than onto a transmission build.
What the lease settles, and what it does not
Anthropic has signed an agreement to lease part of the campus, announced on 16 September 2026, with capacity to grow across the site. It expects to begin using the facility in 2027 and has described the use as running its models rather than training them. Water use is described as broadly comparable with a conventional office building of the same size.
Two conditions remain. The lease is subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval, and the development application is still being assessed. An anchor tenant signing before a planning decision is a signal about commercial confidence, not a substitute for the decision.
For anyone reading this as a pipeline entry, the honest status is: application lodged, tenant committed, approvals outstanding. That is a real and early stage, not a project under construction.
What a supplier should take from it
Four buildings at 360MW each, staged over four to six years, next to an existing 275kV and 330kV junction, is a work programme for high-voltage services, switchgear, power distribution, cooling and commissioning, plus the heavy-lift and project-cargo movements that follow transformer and chiller deliveries into a regional site 250km from Brisbane.
The constraint worth watching is not the headline gigawatts. It is the temporary workforce accommodation village in the application, which is what a developer includes when it does not expect the local labour market to absorb the build. On a regional site, accommodation and logistics are usually the schedule risk before any equipment lead time is.
Why it matters
A single application would add up to 2.16GW of designed electrical load next to an existing 275kV and 330kV substation, staged over four to six years, with the tenant funding the grid connection. For high-voltage, cooling, commissioning and project-cargo providers, the schedule risk sits in site works and regional logistics rather than in a transmission build, and the application's own temporary accommodation village says the developer does not expect local labour to cover it. Nothing is approved: the application is still before Western Downs Regional Council and the lease is conditional on Foreign Investment Review Board approval.